I hadn’t been to Boven in a few years and was keen to get back into climbing but was shocked to hear that 2 people had been mugged at gunpoint at the Foundry on Saturday morning. My friend and I had debated climbing “Too early for the Sky” on Sat morning but opted to go to the Flying is Fun crag in the morning and do the climb after lunch. Lucky for us, as we could have been victims too.

That makes two muggings in the past two consecutive weekends!! It really saddens me to have great memories of fantastic trips I’ve had to Boven, tainted with the prospect of been mugged while climbing in this awesome area.

Speaking to Gustav, he made a suggestion to employ locals to be guides/guards for prospective climbers to the Elandskrans (Restaurant) crags. Give him a shout for more info. Like I said it’s only a suggestion at this point (?)

My suggestion would be to take only your climbing gear (Trad style) and water etc. to these crags in future. Leave the bags, cell phones, watches, expensive Oakleys etc in the car and hide your car keys at the crag. Also try to climb with larger groups of people. It seems that the muggers target smaller groups (2 or so) of people.

Remember we all had a B-I-G tussle a while ago on this forum about crime at the crags? I remember there being quite a following of the notion that the crime at the crags is actually partially the climbing community's fault for not \"co-operating\" , \"uplifting\", \"empowering\" (and all such happy happy feel-good words) the \"community\" who are so diligently relieving us of our possesions and our sense of security whilst enjoying the outdoors and minding our own business.

Can I then please ask these individuals to step up and make haste with their plans?I need to not be robbed of possesions and freedom at the crags anymore.

Good news, the cops have told us that they caught the 3 suspects responsible for the last couple of mugging incidents at Elandskrans. The guys still had a wallet from one of the climbers - not very clever?

Despite everything, the Roc Rally committee has decided to move the venue of the Roc Rally 2006 to Tranquilitas Farm (above Wonderland crags). After many discussions with various climbers and positive responses, we are committed to change the event venue for various reasons.

The one negative point is that we do not have as much chalet accommodation in comparison to last year, there will only be basic & cheap camping. And for those of you that have stayed up at Tranquilitas before, there will be loads of extra showers and toilets brought in for the day. Oh, and the pool will be a much more blue shade of green!

This will also allow all the climbers that own houses in town or those that prefer to stay in the lodges surrounding town to do so and enter the event venue free of charge.

The guys from Nelspruit are promising to make awesome food and we have already started chopping wood for monster-big fires!

The following crags will not be included in this year's competition: triple tier crags, the Gym, School, Restaurant and Gaper.

Everything else will be in play, with security guards at the parking above the Coven and at the waterfall as well police and guards making sure everybody can focus on climbing at the 'hot' crags.

If the change of venue has inconvenienced you in any way, we do apologise - Africa is tough eh?

Yeah! Sounds great Gustav, awesome that security will be provided for the event! Ive never been to Restaurant so maybe I should make this my first visit - probably blow my mind! Now all I need is a partner anyone else at a loose end? Not climbing very hard up to 22/3 at the mo.

Sorry to hear you have never been here! In my mind the optimum grade here is 24. There a classic routes at all the grades and enough 22's to keep you busy for a while, but aim for getting solid on 24 in order to experience awesome sruff.

Grigri, can you start a new \"looking for partners for 'Boven Roc Rally 2006\" thread for us, I have had a few requests already.